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"What's he doing here?" Skye demanded. Simmons remained quiet after she had broken the news to Skye that Ward was back on the Bus. Skye turned away from a guilty looking Simmons and rounded on Coulson, who was as cool as ever.
"Simmons has been using him as a test subject and I wanted to transport him myself to his next prison cell." Coulson replied without missing a beat, "We wanted to tell you earlier, but May felt that you needed some rest and peace at the motel."
"We can't trust him," Skye said through gritted teeth and looked to Trip for support.
"There is still information that we need from him. I wouldn't trust anyone else escorting him. Besides, we still need to find a secure place to stash him." May chipped in.
Skye glared accusingly at May. The senior agent knew what Skye had been going through every night. This better not be a ploy to get her to speak with Ward.
"We don't even know that his information is accurate. It could all be a trap! Not to mention that he knows the Bus. He could easily slit our throats while we're sleeping!"
"No one is forcing you to see him-" Simmons began in a small voice, but Skye ignored her.
"Trip!" The hacktivist implored of the specialist.
Antoine Trip only shrugged apologetically, "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Sorry, Skye."
"Wheels up in five." May announced as if it settled things.
"Don't worry, we'll cross check his info and hook him up to the lie detector at the Playground." Coulson said reassuringly to Skye, but she wasn't convinced.
"He beat the lie detector last time," She reminded her commanding officer.
Coulson smiled grimly at Skye, "Something tells me that he was asked all the wrong questions."
"Where's Ward going once we've reached the Playground? He's not going to stay there, is he?" Skye asked of the new director as they buckled themselves into the round booth before takeoff.
"He's going to have to. There's still a lot that we don't know and right now, the Playground is the most secure place that I know of. Especially since the Fridge has been compromised."
"You mean destroyed," Trip corrected. Coulson inclined his head in the direction of the specialist in acknowledgement.
"What about the Sandbox? We could probably store Ward there, maybe ask the geniuses there if they can determine all his psychological problems."
"Don't trust it. I have yet to go check it out in person, but I think we need to focus on scooping up the rest of HYDRA before focusing on rebuilding SHIELD. We can keep them at the Playground. The place is a lot bigger than you think."
"So is Fury going to volunteer more of his men? Because I'm pretty sure the U.S. Army can't keep guard over all those specially trained agents with possible superpowers. Ooh how about we ask the Avengers for help? I'm sure this is a worthy cause for them to reunite."
Coulson shook his head as the plane began to ascend, "The Avengers think I'm dead. They're not level 7. Besides, they've all gone off the grid and I couldn't reach them even if I tried. Only Fury knows how to get in contact with them, and he's gone dark also."
"Word on the street is that Maria Hill has gone to work for Stark Enterprises. Maybe she can help. Rumor also has it that Captain America and Natasha Romanoff took down the Triskelion. Well, technically they revealed HYDRA and the Triskelion was collateral damage." Trip contributed with a tone of respect (border lining awe).
"Wait…" Skye said slowly, a mischievous look coming into her eyes, "Does that mean I'm a level 7 now?"
Coulson only gave her a cryptic smile, "Need to know basis,"
"Hold on-" Skye started, but just then, May's voice came on the intercom announcing that they had reached a safe altitude.
"I need to go talk to Ward," Coulson announced, standing up and buttoning his suit jacket, "feel free to watch."
Skye stayed in the booth for a couple of seconds, tongue in her cheek, considering how badly she wanted answers from Coulson and how badly she did not want to see Ward. She could feel Trip's eyes on her, waiting to see her decision. When she jumped out of the booth to follow Coulson, she yelled, "Shut up!" over her shoulder to Trip, who was no doubt laughing.
"Coulson, Coulson, hey, so technically, what level am I?" Skye panted, looking eagerly up at the Director. He gave a small smile.
"Skye, there are no more levels."
"But you just said-"
They had reached the interrogation room/Cage now.
"We'll talk later. Don't forget to turn off the sound systems and screen in the Command Center when you're done."
Skye was about to turn around and head back to her bunk but she found herself stopping in the Command Center and turning up the sound and pulling up a visual of the Cage.
"-All I need is five minutes." Ward's voice appeared over the speakers before the visual was drawn up. His voice was lower and rougher since the last time Skye had heard it. Other than in her dreams. Whether it was due to him not speaking in a long time, or the damage done to his larynx by May, Skye wasn't sure.
"Let's talk HYDRA." Coulson cut in.
"What do you want to know?" Ward asked smoothly. A little too smoothly, in Skye's opinion.
"He's lying, Coulson, it's all he ever does," she muttered, but she didn't leave the Command Cetner.
"What remaining pockets are out there?" Coulson demanded.
Ward didn't even hesitate, "Get me a map and I'll mark it for you. Ah- While you're out there, tell Skye I'd like to chat."
Skye bristled but Coulson simply said that she didn't want to see him.
"Damn straight," She said under her breath.
"Skye?"
The hacktivist whirled around to find Triplett standing at the edge of the semicircle made by the glass walls of the Command Center, "what are you doing here?" Skye didn't mean to sound so accusatory, but Trip had startled her while she was angry.
"I was just getting something to eat, but I saw you here. Do you want some breakfast? We never really ate." Trip explained, seemingly unfazed by the young woman's angry manner. Then again, he was probably used to all of Skye's recent mood swings.
"Uh, yeah, that'd be great." Skye replied, feeling a little guilty that she had been caught watching Coulson interrogate Ward.
"It's going to take time," Trip told her, reading the look on her face accurately, "I know you still don't trust him, but I think that right now, Ward's got nothing to lose if he tells the truth. He was never loyal to HYDRA, just to Garrett. Now that Garrett's gone, I think we're the last thing that he has left. Besides, he knows a lost cause when he sees one."
Skye appreciated the wisdom in his words but at the same time, she had to suppress a sneer are the irony of Trip's words. The Ward's replacement specialist handed a bowl of cereal to Skye and led the way back to the booth to eat. There, they encountered Coulson, coming down the spiral staircase with a familiar looking black box in his hand that sent waves of dread through Skye.
"You're giving Ward a bracelet?" That thing had practically driven her crazy when she had to wear it, "what did you program it to do?"
"Contact with objects only in the Cage and the Command Center, and only when he is granted access to files. I suspect you were watching, so you know that we need Ward to point us in the direction of HYDRA agents, and the easiest way for him to do that is through the technology we already have. Trip, can I count on you to observe as a guard?"
"Yessir." Trip began to wolf down his cereal as Skye took her time with hers.
"What about me? Am I allowed to observe not that the levels are gone?" She wiggled her eyebrows at Coulson as he contemplated.
"As long as you don't try to kill our prisoner the minute he walks out here."
"Deal." She swallowed her cereal against the lump in her throat.
"You sure about this?" Trip asked in a low voice, clearly worried, "It's pretty sudden…no time to prepare-"
"Prepare for what? I'll have to see him eventually, so I might as well get it done now. It's totally cool, just like seeing your nightmares come to life. Except they were real to start with."
"Mmm, something about that seems very depressing," Trip noted with a chuckle, "I better get to Coulson."
Skye nodded and collected their empty bowls, "I'll meet you in the Command Center, assuming that I don't wig out and hide in the lab." She laughed but when she got to the sink to wash their bows, her hands were shaking. "Dammit, Skye. Pull yourself together," She murmured to herself. The young woman slammed her hands to the edge of the sink and gripped it tightly until her knuckles turned white. She took a deep breath, bracing herself, then finished drying the bowls and hurried back to the Command Center before Coulson and Trip arrived with the prisoner.
"I pulled up the map with all the HYDRA locations that we already know of as well as common knowledge SHIELD facilities, so you can either enter in the coordinates or click and a place and zoom in." Skye explained, avoiding Ward's eyes. She looked at his shoulders instead which were clothed in a gray jumpsuit.
Ward cleared his throat. "Great. Where should I start?" Skye knew that he was asking her, he had his eyes on her, but she stared resolutely at the screen on the wall.
"How about at the SHIELD facilities?" Coulson jumped in.
"Sure. Anything that you want."
Skye bit the inside of her cheek to keep herself from verbally lashing out at the prisoner. Stop being so cooperative. Ward leaned in to get a better look at the map on the computer table and Skye instinctively leaned back.
"It's, uh, all very self explanatory." She said brightly, moving to stand next to Coulson on the other side of the table.
While the prisoner was entering coordinates and pointing out locations, Skye found herself looking at him. More of examining him, actually. She noticed that he held himself up very rigidly, ask if he had broken his ribs and they had just mended. She also noticed that he filled out the jumpsuit- not in a bad way. He had neither gained nor lost weight, just maintained his muscular figure. If it weren't for the fading bruises and cuts on his face along with the gray pallor of his skin, he would have looked ready for combat.
Not only was his skin tinted gray from the lack of sun exposure, he seemed to have more lines and shadows on his face, accentuated by a few days' worth of stubble along his jaw. His eyes had an empty look about them, almost as if they were haunted.
Then Skye realized that she was staring openly at him and he was staring right back at her. Skye's heart skipped a beat, it was the same look she'd seen on his face with she had first met him- when she was the one in custody and he was the one on the "good side". It was an unreadable look, his signature specialist look, guarded and mysterious and so damn sexy.
And she really kind of hated him for it.
"Ahem, so you were saying, in Macau…" Coulson prompted gently, and just like that, the moment was gone. But not before Skye saw the walls break down around Ward and saw a fleeting look pass through his still handsome features. Skye herself looked down at her hands, trying to clear her mind. Guilt, frustration, anger, longing. An a feeling deep within her chest that made her want to run a thousand miles and try to hack the NSA (again).
When she looked up again, Ward was pointing to a city in Armenia, talking about a sleeper agent there to Coulson. Trip cleared his throat softly and Skye looked up to see his worried eyes.
"I'm fine, I'm just, uh, tired. The motel bed really sucked." She said with a forced laugh, "talk about creaky bedsprings, huh?" She rubbed her shoulders as if to prove a point. Trip raised an eyebrow, but looked away. Skye turned her attention back to Ward and Coulson, who were now debating over a facility in Saudi Arabia. This time, when Ward's eyes met hers, she stared right back into their depths until he looked away first.
Thanks again for reading! Sorry it took me so long to update… I hope this was worth the wait! I'll try to update sooner in the future. Don't be afraid to review! I tried to put in some more lines that reflect Skye's personality- was I successful?